In recent years, an increased number of vehicles combined with increased driving speeds have been giving rise to a concurrent increase in the number of collision accidents. Such accidents each year result in a relatively large number of fatalities and injuries and cause significant property damage.
As is well known, collisions may occur as a result of numerous factors including operator inattentiveness, incompetence, errors in judgment, and so forth. Typically, operator reaction time also plays a part in determining whether a potential collision, once detected, can be avoided.
Accordingly, one potential method for reducing the number of accidents is to allow vehicle drivers to be apprised of the presence of another vehicle and it is in more or less general vicinity. Various situations exist wherein the need to be informed of the presence of another vehicle is particularly crucial. Examples of such situations include atmospheric conditions such as fog, smog, rain, snow, or the like. Other examples include terrain or road conditions such as rough or mountainous terrain, curves, dips or crests, intersections, or the like. Lighting conditions ranging from well-lit highways in clear weather to unlit back roads in foul weather are further examples of situations wherein the knowledge of the presence of another vehicle, within the predetermined range, may become crucial.
Heretofore, it has been a customary practice by drivers of various types of vehicles to attempt to view the area in the vicinity of the vehicle by way of one or more mirrors mounted on the interior or exterior of the vehicle or, alternatively, for drivers to turn their heads to visually observe a particular area. As will be recognized, the various interior and exterior mounted mirrors of the vehicle typically yield a selective area in the vicinity of the vehicle commonly referred to as a blind spot which cannot be properly observed, thereby rendering a driving manoeuvre dangerous while the turning of the driver's head to visually observe the desired area requires the drivers to be momentarily inattentive to the vicinity in front of the vehicle. Thus, these two alternatives for observing the selected areas in the vicinity of the vehicle prior to making a driving manoeuvre have proven less than ideal and usually have posed a significant safety hazard to the driver of the vehicle or adjacent vehicles.
The prior art has shown some examples of systems and devices for detecting the presence of other vehicles. However, most of these systems or devices suffer from numerous drawbacks. For example, some of these systems have a marked directionality requiring precise alignment between vehicles. Also, some prior art devices and systems have limited effectiveness when used for measuring distances of less than a few hundred meters.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an improved vehicle proximity alarm system, that would be inexpensive, robust and that would be efficient in a variety of weather, lighting, road and field conditions, where several obstacles may be found. There is also a need for a vehicle alarm system that would not only alert someone of the presence of someone else in the immediate neighborhood, but would indicate if that presence is at long or short range and furthermore, would give indications about the nature or the status of the presence. Finally there is a need for such systems to be deployed among travelers that can be vehicles or pedestrians, and be installed on obstacles of a territory, in order to increase the safety of the territory and to provide to those travelers the possibility of traveling without concerns of having a collision with another traveler until being warned with the vehicle alarm system of his presence. It is therefore a general object of the present invention to provide such an improved vehicle proximity alarm system.